MARCH 19TH

POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK

Craft must be at charge for clothes, but Truth can go naked.

— Benjamin Franklin,1747

AMERICANREVOLUTION.ORG

The Loyalist Pages

ATROCITIES

This article is specifically directed to those
unsuspecting persons who have sympathy for the perpetrators of
property damage, bodily injury, and general mayhem against citizens
of the Colonies. The perpetrators of criminal acts, in my opinion,
are already so hardened to their cause that the following information
will not end their criminal efforts but merely excite them by
publicizing their alleged legitimate activities. I appeal to
the people of common sense and decency that I feel comprise the
majority of my fellow Colonists, citizens who have learned to
circumscribe their desires and keep the passions within due bounds
toward fellow Colonists, despite their political viewpoint. I
have titled this article "ATROCITIES" to expose and
document the mayhem that certain violent individuals have perpetrated
upon our fellow Colonial Citizens. Heretofore our British Government
has ruled justly and has allowed the Colonies a tradition of
local autonomy. It appears that certain individuals have chosen
to assume a type of vigilante authority with no control by local
governing authorities to protect ALL citizens from criminal behavior.
Selective enforcement of the law of the land will only produce
anarchy. I suspect that a tradition of selective violence against
a politically correct or incorrect populous is becoming the norm
and is even being sanctioned by the general populous. Here are
the facts;

August 1765 John Oliver and family are advised
by Sheriff Greenleaf to leave their house fearing mob violence.
Oliver's house was vandalized, stores of liquor were destroyed
glass and furniture were broken, the house was totally dismantled.
Governor Bernard demanded that the militia be summoned but was
informed that the militia was the mob! So much for local autonomy
controlling the peace and tranquility of the Colonies.

August 1765, mobs again destroy Thomas Hutchinson's
PRIVATE HOME. News reports state his home was reduced to a "splintered
shell", "out of the ruins came a trail of dinner plates
and family portraits, books and children's clothes. A strongbox
had been broken open and nine hundred pounds taken. The manuscript
pages of Hutchinson's history of Massachusetts had been strewn
in the mud, along with the rare documents he had spent a lifetime
collecting". Thomas Hutchinson is quoted " I hope all
will see how easily the people may be deluded, inflamed and carried
away with madness against an innocent man. I pray God give us
better hearts!"

As a result of this violence one man Ebenezer
Macintosh was arrested, accused as the leader of the mob, and
summarily released upon threats of more violence. A trial by
jury never resulted from the accusation and arrest. A bounty
of three hundred pounds was raised for identifying the mob's
leader, the reward went unclaimed. One can easily speculate than
had the homes of Oliver and Hutchinson not been vacated prior
to the destruction of property there could also been bodily injury
committed against the families.

Where will justice prevail? It is clear to
me that the promoters of rebel rhetoric must curb their tongues
lest they unleash anarchy upon the Colonies. Will we continue
to allow mobs to set public policy or will we support the tenants
of the British constitution? Remember the defendants of the Boston
tragedy were given a fair trial and all but two were acquitted.
The perpetrators of the Boston Tea property destruction have
yet to be found and sent to trial. Once the majority of Colonial
citizenry knows the truth I have faith that they will see the
error of rebellion.